Have you guys met my youngest oldie?

Let me tell you about this guy!

Ohhhh my Bogie boy

Twas’ a warm summer day in 2010,

I was working in a salon- the very first place I became an independent stylist 😊

When I met the sweeeeest puppy.

One of the clients had brought their new yellow lab pup to their appointment and I was absolutely stricken

by PUPPY FEVER 😍

The googly-eyed kind, which was a force of nature to be reckoned with.

I was going to have me a new puppy!

A little voice in the back of my mind said “are you out of your actual fucking mind?”

We already had one crazy dog at home who I couldn’t get to mind at all

So the question was valid.

But I was out of my mind, with puppy fever😅

So, I answered myself with alllll the reasons why another puppy, on top of the SUPER rowdy, badly behaved puppy we already had was actually a super great idea! 💡

Maybe having another dog around to play with will wear her out and calm her down?

If we get a mellow puppy, maybe she will start to match that energy…

How much harder could two dogs be than one anyway?

Spoiler alert: A lot harder 🤣

Either way, my mind was already made up and I knew it.

Convinced my then-husband that it was a good idea and we hopped in the truck to go get our puppy.

Out of a whole litter of pups, he was the last one left 🥹

A floppy slightly awkward lil puppy, all legs.

Tussling, gettin rolled head-over-heels in the dirt by a tired momma dog who was ready to be rid of him

I was head over heels too 😍

And for the life of me I couldn’t figure out how it could be that he was the last one left because

He was absolutely perfect 🤩

The universe must have been saving him for me…

Again, the voice whispered “are you sure?”

Yes. So sure

Bogie was the best dog that could have possibly come into our lives and I must be the luckiest dog mom in the whole world 🫶🏻

He did calm that crazy dog down, in a way

A yin to her yang

Never had I known two such opposite dogs

Right away, he was the sweetest boy with the best disposition

and just the lazy guy I’d dreamed of

to balance out our crazy crazy girl.

The best brother a headstrong lil yellow lab could ask for 💛

The most loyal, people-pleasing dog you ever met

The bestest boy, without a doubt.

That was the super early days of my dogmommin career and now,

14 years of life experiences later

Things aren’t easy like young me thought and dreamed they would be.

Throughout the years that I’ve been taking care of this boy, we’ve gone through some things together…

Potty training

Injuries

Surgeries

Trauma

Divorce

Long term separation

Being reunited in 2020, right before the COV

Sickness

Toxic living environments and many moves

Cancer

Amputation surgery and recovery

and now…our biggest challenge yet

Old age

I knew way back in the beginning

In some long, far-off way that watching my pups get old would be hard

But GODDAMN

I was absolutely not prepared for how hard it really is

In Bogie’s case, it’s not just the mental difficulty of knowing that someone I’ve loved and taken care of for 14 years isn’t going to grow up, become independent, move out and come for back for visits

but is instead going to enter into a rapid physical decline become much more dependent on me and ultimately…

Well, you know 🥺😭

That’s hard to witness and be care-taker for, no matter how much you know it’s coming

In our case it’s also been physically, quite challenging.

Bogie’s a 75 lb dog, moving him around is not exactly an easy task.

My 5’3” self, has a pretty challenging time getting him up and down for potties, especially when he doesn’t want to.

It’s tough for him to move around now, without that front leg

Fucking cancer.

I hate that it’s so hard for him

I hate watching him struggle

I hate that it’s my job to decide when ‘it’s that time’

I hate not knowing how/when I’ll ‘know’

But somehow, I know that I will

The thing that I’m most grateful for?

That time isn’t now

He’s still healthy (other than that damn missing leg)

He’s still happy

He still plays with us and tells us what he needs/wants so we can help him

and even though it’s hard…So hard

The lifting

The special diet of carefully curated (and expensive) supplements

The cleaning up of pees and poos in the house CONSTANTLY

The alternative of not having him here is still harder.

He’s my boy, my bestest boy

You bet your ass I’ll do what I have to do to make sure he can be with us for as long as he’s meant to

And I’ll thank my lucky stars every damn day for the privilege of being able to love a dog and be loved by a dog for his entire life

If you ever wonder about the motivation behind the work I’m doing to build my online business, wonder no more…

Everything I’m doing is so I can spend as much time with these pups as possible

While I still can 💛